Saint Joseph Catholic Church

In an interview with the Vatican newspaper, a Minnesota bishop offered strong criticism of the actions of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents.

“I was in Kyiv during the winter several times,” said Cardinal Konrad Krajewski. “It is a nightmare when the city is left without power at this time of the year. It is a deadly risk for people.”

“The goal is to destroy Ukraine’s infrastructure, particularly its energy sector, and freeze Ukrainians,” added Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk, the head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church. “These are very obvious signs of crimes against humanity, against international law, against the rules and moral norms of warfare.”

“We have gathered here to declare that the police have no right to inflict physical or mental violence on any citizen of our country,” said Father Jude Krishantha, spokesman for the archdiocese. “We call on the president and all those who handle the law to ensure that the police do not allow such physical and mental violence against any citizen, not just a religious leader.”

“On Holocaust Remembrance Day, I would like to recall that the Church remains faithful to the unwavering position of the Declaration Nostra Aetate against every form of antisemitism,” Pope Leo tweeted. “The Church rejects any discrimination or harassment based on ethnicity, language, nationality, or religion.”

“Directing forces to ‘spare no lives’ is a direct call to genocide,” said Cardinal Ameyu. “We call on all the fighting forces not to heed any directive that risks victimizing innocent civilians and pitting communities against each other.”

“I’ll only say that we must pray very much for peace,” Pope Leo told journalists last evening, when asked about the presence of a U.S. aircraft carrier in the Persian Gulf.

“We little ones can raise our voices and always seek dialogue and not violence to resolve these problems, especially on this day when we commemorate the Shoah,” the Pope added, referring to International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

St. Ansgar, now remembered as the Apostle of the North, “faced enormous opposition and seemed to fail, but success was not what he sought,” Cardinal Parolin preached.

The saint’s life, the prelate said, shows that the Church grows “not primarily in numbers, but in men and women who live lives of faithfulness, perseverance, and love: the mission begins with transformed hearts.”

The prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith called for intellectual humility at the opening of the dicastery’s plenary session and linked the lack of such humility to the “excesses of the Inquisition, the world wars, the Shoah, and the massacres in Gaza.”